An Evening in the Canyon

The chords on the nylon string guitar move back and forth from A to G.

The people playing hand drums
The girls with big smiles
The guy who coerces sound out of the accordion
They all join the guitar player, singing:

"I am the Buddha of love and compassion."

Big smiles on every face. They are possibly high, and they believe what they are singing. They ARE the Buddhas of love and compassion.

I decline my 674th offer of wine. It's not just that I don't drink wine -- I also don't drink Kool-Aid.

-Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 2009

Woes

   I couldn't stop crying.  Day after day, I found myself binging on ice cream cake and molasses.  "What's it all about?!", I asked out loud.  And looking for answers, I could only turn to the kitchen table.  It did not speak, but its stone-faced rendition of 'John Brown's Body' still haunts me every time I think about it.

   A horse once asked me how I felt about the economy.  I told him, "In the event of a recession, I'm unemployed."  I explained to him that I invested my life savings in a cereal company many years ago, and I'm still waiting to eat my first bowl of Depressing Shreds of Wheat.

   If that weren't enough, it started raining shoes again last night, and they did a number on the windshield of my car.  The forecast for tonight isn't so great either: heavy showers of push pin with a slight chance of bowling ball.  Sometimes, I don't even know why I bother owning an umbrella.  

  

The Handsome Trio, Potential

The way I see it, 

Amos is at the top-right in Rochester,

Benny is at the top-middle in Chicago, 

and I'm at the top-left in Seattle.  

We can throw everything we have to offer off our balconies, falling like icicles, landing on and killing unsuspecting pedestrians in Miami, New Orleans and San Diego.

Band-Aid

I would offer you a band-aid,

but it looks like you need stitches.

Swooped/Shtupped

I swooped down like a vulture,

then shtupped like a tiger.

Taking Notes From The Marble Man

  "I think it crawled under the stove."

   I dropped down to the floor and lay on my stomach, pointing a flashlight at the spot where the small mouse might have ended up.  Olivia continued to eat her cheese sandwich.

  "Don't bother," she resumed.  "Once it's out of your sight, you have to wait until the next time you see it to see it.  He's hiding.  He's afraid of you.  He probably hates flashlights, too."

   I gave up.  Olivia had too many opinions on the matter, so I went back into my office and got back to work on my biography of Robert E. Lee.  I imagined the illustrious Confederate general, and how he might have dealt with a mouse problem.  I imagine he'd have invaded strategic points around the stove, stationing mouse traps in the nook between the stove and the cabinet, gain ground, make advances.  Lee wouldn't use a flashlight.

  General William T. Sherman, however, would probably light the entire kitchen on fire.  Olivia would disapprove.

  Lee, of course, chose the losing side.  He had his chance in 1861 when President Abraham Lincoln offered Lee the job of taking charge of the Union Army, but Lee's home state of Virginia was soon to be seceded into the Confederacy.  Lee declined.  It went something like this:

  Lincoln: "Robert E. Lee, how would you like to be in command of the Union Army?"

  Lee: "The whole Union Army?  Well, uh, the thing is Mr. President...I'm from Virginia."

  Lincoln:  "Oh, I see."

  Lee: "..."

  Lincoln: "..."

  Lee was born in Virginia's Westmoreland County, right near the Maryland border.  If Lee were born just a few miles north, he would've been willing and able to add his military leadership skills to the Union, and the Civil War might not have lasted as long.

  General Sherman of Lancaster, Ohio, on the other hand, got a lot of credit for helping to end the war with his strategic tactics, such as burning down the city of Atlanta.  Sherman's "Atlanta Campaign" could be to the Civil War what the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings were to World War II.  Luckily for everyone, trigger-happy, fire-loving General Sherman had no access to nuclear weapons.

  Lee, I believe, was thoughtful and empathetic toward others (even for a slave-owning, Confederate leader, his stance on slavery was pretty wishy-washy).  I decided to catch that mouse, humane, Lee-style.

  When I walked into the kitchen, I found the mouse lying motionless in the middle of the floor.  Olivia stood next to it, holding her sandwich in one hand and a frying pan in the other.  She looked at me, smiling, and said, "I think I killed it."